Tag Archives: Customer Experience

Cases

Why I am happy to pay an extra $1,000 for a used car at CarMax

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California is not bike-friendly and I decided to look for a used car. I found a car I liked on CarGurus.com and scheduled a test drive it. But just a day before my visit, I received a text saying the car had already been sold. It was frustrating.

Therefore, I decided to visit CarMax, the used car dealership many people recommend. I was not expecting much, but to my surprise, the experience turned out to be refreshing.

The first thing I noticed was clean, bright, and organized. It felt like an IKEA store. In particular, the lighting gave the whole place a welcoming vibe. It made me feel freshly excited, which is not something I associate with used car shopping.

Secondly, the way salesperson worked with me was unexpected. At Bank of America, the teller kept the screen to themselves while I sat behind it. At Carmax, however, the salesperson shared his screen with me. He and I went through the car’s history, the price breakdown, and all the details together. It felt like we were on the same team, not buyer and seller. Interestingly, he was not knowledgeable about cars, but that helped me feel less intimidating and more relaxed. Sharing the screen was a simple but powerful gesture.

Finally, the cars and the prices were the same as advertised. When I arrived at the parking lot, the cars I came to test drive were there, just as promised, with no need for negotiation. It reminded me of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

CarMax might be slightly pricier than other dealerships, but I am willing to pay a premium for the peace of mind it brings. The bright store design, transparent sales process, and WYSIWYG style inventory transformed a frustrating car buying experience into something positive.

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Reference (bright store design for visitor experience)

Spence, C., Puccinelli, N. M., Grewal, D., & Roggeveen, A. L. (2014). Store atmospherics: A multisensory perspective. Psychology & Marketing, 31(7), 472–488.

Store atmospherics affect consumer behavior. This message has created a revolution in sensory marketing techniques, such that across virtually every product category, retailers and manufacturers seek to influence the consumer’s “sensory experience.” The key question is how should a company design its multisensory atmospherics in store to ensure that the return on its investment is worthwhile? This paper reviews the scientific evidence related to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory aspects of the store environment and their influence on the consumer’s shopping behavior. The findings emphasize the need for further research to address how the multisensory retail environment shapes customer experience and shopping behavior.

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Reference (transparent sales process for user experience)

Roten, Y. S., & Vanheems, R. (2023). To share or not to share screens with customers? Lessons from learning theories. Journal of Services Marketing, 37(1), 65–77.

Purpose: Even as retailers add digital features to their physical stores and equip their service teams with digital devices, no research has addressed the implications of frontline employees (FLEs) sharing a screen side-by-side with customers as a contemporary service practice. This paper aims to identify the potential customer benefits of this service practice.

Design/methodology/approach: Noting the lack of theoretical considerations of screen-sharing in marketing, this paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach and combines learning theories with computer-supported collaborative learning topics to explore how screen-sharing service practices can lead to benefits or drawbacks.

Findings: The findings specify three main domains of perceived benefits and drawbacks (instrumental, social link, individual control) associated with using a screen-sharing service. These three dimensions in turn are associated with perceptions of accepted or unaccepted expertise status and relative competence.

Research limitations/implications: The interdisciplinary perspective applied to a complex new service interaction pattern produces a comprehensive framework that can be applied by services marketing literature.

Practical implications: This paper details tactics for developing appropriate training programmes for FLEs and sales teams. In omnichannel service environments, identifying and leveraging the key perceived benefits of screen-sharing can establish enviable competitive advantages for service teams.

Originality/value: By integrating findings of a qualitative research study with knowledge stemming from education sciences, this paper identifies some novel service postures (e.g. teacher, peer, facilitator) that can help maximise customer benefits.

Roten, Y. S., & Vanheems, R. (2024). The dimensions of phygital autonomy: losing some, gaining some. Journal of Marketing Management, 40(11-12), 996-1029.

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Reference – (WYSIWYG-style inventory for customer experience)

Aastrup, J., & Kotzab, H. (2010). Forty years of out-of-stock research–and shelves are still empty. The International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 20(1), 147-164.

This article examines 40 years of research conducted in the area of Out-of-Stocks (OOS). Two research streams originating from the Progressive Grocer (1968) study are reviewed. The first stream dealt with demand side issues and analysed consumer responses to OOS. The other dealt with supply side issues and analysed the extent and root causes of OOS situations as well as how to improve OOS. Four paradoxes are derived from the review and are discussed: 1) OOS rates largely seem to fall into an average level at about 7 to 8% despite 40 years of research; 2) only sparse attempts have been made to integrate the two research streams; 3) there is an emphasis on minimizing OOS rather than relying on basic trade-offs as addressed by Economic-Order-Quantity theory to optimize OOS levels; and 4) despite clear evidence of the store as the major contributor to OOS situations, the store has largely remained a ‘black-box’ in OOS research. Finally, the study suggests that OOS research can integrate the notions of the two streams by showing how the conditions for consumer responses can be translated into different degrees for costs of understocking taken from Economic-Order-Quantity theory. This will have important implications for the management of OOS.

Cases

What I discovered at Stanford’s d.school’s unusual workshop

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Stanford’s d.school workshop, Unleash Creativity, offers a unique hands-on approach to learning. During my visit, I could feel the creative energy, from the open second-floor view to the iconic d.school truck inside the building to the this year’s course schedule packed with hands-on activities.

Plate says: The Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford was established in 2005 to recognize an extraordinary gift from the Hasso Plattner Foundation to inspire teaching and research in design thinking and the creation of a home for the Institute. The Institute is dedicated to the spread of design thinking and the application of its principles to real-world problems. The design and renovations of this facility along with Hasso Plattner’s continued role in championing design thinking around the world were celebrated on May 7, 2010.

In Unleash Creativity, participants jumped straight into exercises without explanation. For instance, instead of talking about ideas, they started by drawing, connecting, and coloring dots. The interesting part is that they only learned why they did each activity afterward, as the instructor, Dustin Liu, explained the purpose and effect. This approach—learning by doing—really made them feel the power of creative expression.

One memorable activity had them listen to others share about someone they admire and then draw that person without talking. This helped them see deeper into one another’s perspectives. Through the carefully designed powerful exercises of listening, sharing, and drawing, they experienced the true power of empathy.

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Reference

Auernhammer, J., & Roth, B. (2021). The origin and evolution of Stanford University’s design thinking: From product design to design thinking in innovation management. Journal of Product Innovation, 38(July), 623–644.

This article outlines the origin and evolution of one of the most influential design thinking perspectives in the Innovation Management discourse. This study addresses two significant criticisms of design thinking, namely, theoretical grounding and construct clarity. It also illustrates how this humanistic and creative design practice transcended into a comprehensive Innovation Management approach, facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation. Our research analyzes the evolution of the design philosophy and practices developed at Stanford University from 1957 to 2005 through document analysis. We identified design qualities that have been consistent over the decades, providing further construct clarity and insights on managing Design- driven Innovation. These design qualities elucidate design thinking as a cognitive process, creative practice, organizational routine, and design culture. They emphasize finding profound needs and problems and translate them into tangible designs, creating value for people. This design philosophy is deeply rooted in humanistic psychology theories, particularly on creativity and human values. Collaborations between psychologists, industrial researchers, and designers created this creative and human- centered design approach, known today as design thinking. This value- driven innovation offers a humanistic perspective on innovation theory and practice. It also offers an Innovation Management schema of design qualities essential for developing Design- driven Innovation capabilities in organizations and educational institutions. We emphasize that developing a creative design culture in which people have the human values, abilities, and confidence to collaboratively identify continuous emerging problems and needs and contribute through tangible designs generates an era of innovation and is essentially innovation management.

Practitioner Points
  • Design thinking as a step-by-step process with tools prevents fluency in thinking and flexibility in approach, which are essential in Design-driven Innovation.
  • An essential innovation management task is to develop a design culture and capabilities by freeing teams from emerging blocks imposed by the environment.
  • In organizations, Design-driven Innovation requires the development of micro-foundation, such as abilities and attitudes & values, and capabilities, such as creative routines and environments of support and psychological safety and freedom.
  • Innovation managers and educators need to consider essential design qualities when enabling people to design tangible solution for open and complex problems.
Cases

Rethinking ‘experience’: What my visit to Google Visitor Experience taught me

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Recently, I visited the Google Visitor Experience at the Googlplex. I went in expecting something amazing—maybe the chance to try out new techonolgy like self driving cars (like Waymo), virtual reality glasses (like Ray-Ban Meta Glasses), or advanced AI assistants (like Open AI). High expectations felt natural—it is Silicon Valley and Google, the place for extraordinary experiences.

However, the reality was much simpler. The space named as “Google Visitor Experience” revolves around three main activities: browsing Google-branded merchandise in the store, enjoying a coffee at the café, and relaxing in a small public area called “Huddle.”

These activities felt quite ordinary, which was surprising. For me, and probably for many people in Asia, the word “experience” suggests something special—sophisticated and luxurious. But here at Google Visitor Experience, what I found was simplicity instead. This gap between what I expected and what I actually encountered made me think about the meaning of “experience.”

In consumer research, “experience” is hard to define and measure. Hoch (2002) points out that experiences is enticing but tricky to pin down, which often makes studying them less precise. My visit to the Google Visitor Experience reminded me that sometimes our expectations for an “experience” can be bigger than reality. This visit made me think more about how we define experiences.

Now may be the time to define “experience” through the lens of satisfaction research suggested by Oliver (2014). Customer satisfaction hinges on the gap between expectation and reality, and experience should be understood in the same way—by studying both the anticipated and actual experience. A key challenge here will be managing experience expectations, similar to how we approach expectation management for satisfaction.

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Reference

Hoch, S. J. (2002). Product experience is seductive. Journal of consumer research, 29(3), 448-454.

Product experience seduces consumers into believing that they learn more than is actually so. There are several reasons for this. First, experience is more engaging than most attempts at education, both more vivid and intentional, and consequently more memorable. Second, experience is viewed as nonpartisan, devoid of the didacticism of formal education and the self-serving interests of advertisers. Third, much of experience is ambiguous, but not recognized as such. Experience supports a pseudodiagnosticity that draws the consumer in as a willing partner in the seduction. Finally, the endogeneity of tastes allows consumers to accommodate to chosen alternatives and results in infrequent regrets about being seduced.

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Reference

Oliver, R. L. (1993). Cognitive, affective, and attribute bases of the satisfaction response. Journal of consumer research, 20(3), 418-430.

An attempt to extend current thinking on postpurchase response to include attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction as separate determinants not fully reflected in either cognitive (i.e., expectancy disconfirmation) or affective paradigms is presented. In separate studies of automobile satisfaction and satisfaction with course instruction, respondents provided the nature of emotional experience, disconfirmation perceptions, and separate attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction judgments. Analysis confirmed the disconfirmation effect and the effects of separate dimensions of positive and negative affect and also suggested a multidimensional structure to the affect dimensions. Additionally, attribute satisfaction and dissatisfaction were significantly related to positive and negative affect, respectively, and to overall satisfaction. It is suggested that all dimensions tested are needed for a full accounting of postpurchase responses in usage.

Cases

How IDEO pushes boundaries of design thinking: B2B and generative AI

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During a recent visit to IDEO‘s San Francisco office, I learned how design thinking can be harnessed in B2B contexts and the transformative potential of generative AI. IDEO’s approach highlighted how design thinking is not limited to extreme end-users but extends meaningfully to B2B industries. By embracing this methodology, companies can reduce development timelines while serving the needs of various stakeholders.

IDEO’s collaboration with Ford highlights how design thinking can adapt quickly to address B2B challenges. Ford identified a gap in van driver security due to the long product development cycles. In response, IDEO designed a van security solution within just 12 weeks, quick prototyping to expedite development. This solution ultimately led to the creation of the joint venture between Ford and ADT, which integrated sensors, cameras, and AI to detect window breakage or unauthorized access.

One particularly inspiring session was learning about the integration of generative AI into design thinking processes. Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, has opened new avenues for, so called, “synthetic research.” Generative AI enables the creation of hypothetical personas that bring fresh insight into understanding potential customer needs. Additionally, by using video prototypes developed through AI, designers can iterate on ideas faster and more creatively than traditional methods allow.

This visit enlightened me about the transformative potential of merging emerging technologies like generative AI with established design thinking frameworks. By continuously pushing the boundaries of design thinking, IDEO opens new possibilities for the B2B sector, fostering faster, tailored solutions to meet evolving needs.

Tim Brown & Jaewoo Joo

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Reference

Brown, T. (2008). Design thinking. Harvard business review, 86(6), 84.

In the past, design has most often occurred fairly far downstream in the development process and has focused on making new products aesthetically attractive or enhancing brand perception through smart, evocative advertising. Today, as innovation’s terrain expands to encompass human-centered processes and services as well as products, companies are asking designers to create ideas rather than to simply dress them up.

Brown, the CEO and president of the innovation and design firm IDEO, is a leading proponent of design thinking—a method of meeting people’s needs and desires in a technologically feasible and strategically viable way. In this article he offers several intriguing examples of the discipline at work. One involves a collaboration between frontline employees from health care provider Kaiser Permanente and Brown’s firm to reengineer nursing-staff shift changes at four Kaiser hospitals. Close observation of actual shift changes, combined with brainstorming and rapid prototyping, produced new procedures and software that radically streamlined information exchange between shifts. The result was more time for nursing, better-informed patient care, and a happier nursing staff.

Another involves the Japanese bicycle components manufacturer Shimano, which worked with IDEO to learn why 90% of American adults don’t ride bikes. The interdisciplinary project team discovered that intimidating retail experiences, the complexity and cost of sophisticated bikes, and the danger of cycling on heavily trafficked roads had overshadowed people’s happy memories of childhood biking. So the team created a brand concept—“Coasting”—to describe a whole new category of biking and developed new in-store retailing strategies, a public relations campaign to identify safe places to cycle, and a reference design to inspire designers at the companies that went on to manufacture Coasting bikes.

Cases

In-N-Out’s nostalgia drives a unique experience

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I recently visited several In-N-Out burgers in Long Beach and San Carlos and found myself immersed in a nostalgic atmosphere. From the red and white decor to the lively staff, the ambiance felt like a step back in time.

One detail particularly stood out was that an employee stepped outside to greet drivers at the drive-through. This personal, nostalgic touch probably resonates with many customers.

Nostalgia can enhance consumer satisfaction, often outweighing price or product quality. In an era of fast-paced change, such genuine, authentic gestures can be more impactful than any menu update.

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Reference

Hartmann, B. J., & Brunk, K. H. (2019). Nostalgia marketing and (re-) enchantment. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 36(4), 669-686.

Most marketing and branding activities are essentially concerned with enchantment—the rendering of the ordinary into something special. To create enchantment, companies are increasingly marketing past-themed brands and products. Yet, there is little research about why and how such nostalgia marketing creates enchantment for consumers. Building on different modalities of nostalgia identified in sociological literature (reluctant nostalgia, progressive nostalgia, and playful nostalgia), we analyze the creation of enchantment through a longitudinal, qualitative, multi-method program of inquiry. We find three routes to enchantment grounded in different nostalgia modes: (1) re-instantiation (symbolic retrojection into a past), (2) re-enactment (reflexively informing the present with past-themed brands and practices), and (3) re-appropriation (ludic re-interpretation of the past). By unfolding the different ways in which marketers can press rewind to create enchantment, we discern important implications for theorizing and managing past-themed brands in terms of marketing strategy, targeting and positioning, brand experience design, and marketing communications.

Cases

Postcards without stamps: How retailers miss simple customer needs

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When I recently visited a CVS store in Long Beach, I stood in front of an impressive display of postcards. There were options for every occasion—anniversaries, Halloween, and even postcards designed to send money via Venmo. After choosing a card, I instinctively searched for postal stamps. To my surprise, the store did not sell them. This simple task of sending a postcard turned into a complex process. I had to go to Ralphs store, buy a book of 20 forever stamps for $14.60, and inquire how many were required for international shipping. This endeavor took over two hours. Even finding a post box was a challenge.

This experience echoes findings from Hwang et al. (2022) on goal-based bundling, where understanding consumer goals helps companies like Samsung develop product bundles that address customer needs holistically. If CVS applied a similar approach and emphasized with their shoppers deeply, bundling postcards with stamps could enhance consumer experience. Since the goal of buying a postcard is inherently linked to mailing it, offering both products together would eliminate unnecessary friction, saving time and improving convenience.

Building on this idea, not only retailers like CVS but also postcard makers like Hallmark could improve the postcard experience by launching postcards with pre-attached postal stamps. This would make it easier for customers, especially those who want send mail simply. By making mailing as easy as buying, manufacturers would help meet customer needs directly. This approach could also attract more people to send postcards, creating a new market focused on convenience and simplicity.

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Reference

Hwang, S., Park, H., Sohn, M., Yoo, D., Han, C., & Joo, J. (2022). Goal based bundling: A behaviorally informed strategy to combine multiple smart products. In G. Bruyns & H. Wei (Eds.), [ _ ] With Design: Reinventing Design Modes (pp. 2888–2901). Singapore: Springer.

Contemporary electronic manufacturers struggle with how to develop attractive bundles by combining their existing smart products. In the present work, we propose Goal Based Bundling (GBB) by drawing on the academic research of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018) and shed light on two previously ignored aspects of bundling strategy: service and glue product. We applied our GBB to a collaborative project with Samsung Electronics, whose goal was to develop new product bundles for kids by combining multiple smart home products. We constructed a framework of Samsung Electronics’ smart products and then visualized it on its sales website. A UI design conveying the value of smart products bundle was developed based on GBB structure. We discuss the process and the result of our project to provide insights into the product managers who combine existing smart products to develop a bundle.

Cases

Vintage speakers that do not play: The art of deception in cafe design

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Salon de Jungui Lee is a cafe in Jeju island. With minimal construction and a commitment to preserving its essence, the owner of the old house transformed it into a cafe that embodies her philosophy of refined simplicity.

This cafe is a popular destination among Korean coffee lovers. Coffee is excellent, but its desserts are not overly sweet, not sticky, nor heavy treats. To me, each bite was a carefully orchestrated symphony of taste and texture.

Beyond taste, its atmosphere was unique. The pinnacle was the air conditioner vent. Instead of a tasteless plastic vent, a repurposed traditional Korean window frame was hanging on the ceiling. It was functional, beautiful, and deeply rooted in cultural heritage.

While enjoying coffee, dessert, and unique air conditioner vent, I naturally assumed that the vintage speaker pumped out the tunes. However, it was actually a cleverly disguised modern Bose system connected to an iPhone.

Salon de Jungui Lee taught me a valuable lesson about experience. It is not just about the individual components – the coffee, the desserts, or the décor. It is about how these elements come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

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Reference

Hogarth, R. M. (2005). Deciding analytically or trusting your intuition? The advantages and disadvantages of analytic and intuitive thought. In The Routines of Decision Making (pp. 67–82).

Recent research has highlighted the notion that people can make judgments and choices by means of two systems that are labeled here tacit (or intuitive) and deliberate (or analytic). Whereas most decisions typically involve both systems, this chapter examines the conditions under which each system is liable to be more effective. This aims to illuminate the age-old issue of whether and when people should trust “intuition” or “analysis.” To do this, a framework is presented to understand how the tacit and deliberate systems work in tandem. Distinctions are also made between the types of information typically used by both systems as well as the characteristics of environments that facilitate or hinder accurate learning by the tacit system. Next, several experiments that have contrasted “intuitive” and “analytic” modes on the same tasks are reviewed. Together, the theoretical framework and experimental evidence leads to specifying the trade-off that characterizes their relative effectiveness. Tacit system responses can be subject to biases. In making deliberate system responses, however, people might not be aware of the “correct rule” to deal with the task they are facing and/or make errors in executing it. Whether tacit or deliberate responses are more valid in particular circumstances requires assessing this trade-off. In this, the probability of making errors in deliberate thought is postulated to be a function of the analytical complexity of the task as perceived by the person. Thus the trade-off is one of bias (in implicit responses) versus analytical complexity (when tasks are handled in deliberate mode). Finally, it is noted that whereas much attention has been paid in the past to helping people make decisions in deliberate mode, efforts should also be directed toward improving ability to make decisions in tacit mode since the effectiveness of decisions clearly depends on both. This therefore represents an important frontier for research.

*Event

When it comes to customer experience, patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet

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Digital Marketing Summit 2023

I was invited by Digital Marketing Summit 2023 to moderate a fireside chat between two customer experience professionals. They are Jonah Hong, Corporate Vice President and Head of Digital Customer Experience at the Hyundai Motor Group and Dan Gingiss, the author of the Experience Maker.

Digital Marketing Summit 2023

Jonah Hong highlighted bitter patience. He introduced the challenges that Hyundai Motor Group faces. “To address different customers with different tastes and preferences, we have to create tens of millions, or even hundreds of millions of personalized content for a vehicle. To do this globally, organizations have to exchange data each other in the short term and we have to go beyond functional organizations in the long term. To do this work dynamically, automatically, and in real time, investments had to be made in technology.”

Digital Marketing Summit 2023

Dan Gingiss emphasized sweet fruit. In the conversation, he elaborated a wide variety of real life examples in which people spent more and they recommended a company more strongly when the company delivered superior experience to customers. His examples clarifies that having a positive customer experience values more than consuming a high-performing product.

Digital Marketing Summit 2023
Publications

Bundling smart products better by considering consumers’ goals

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Abstract

Contemporary electronic manufacturers struggle with how to develop attractive bundles by combining their existing smart products. In the present work, we propose Goal Based Bundling (GBB) by drawing on the academic research of goal systems theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018) and shed light on two previously ignored aspects of bundling strategy: service and glue product. We applied our GBB to a collaborative project with Samsung Electronics, whose goal was to develop new product bundles for kids by combining multiple smart home products. We constructed a framework of Samsung Electronics’ smart products and then visualized it on its sales website. A UI design conveying the value of smart products bundle was developed based on GBB structure. We discuss the process and the result of our project to provide insights into the product managers who combine existing smart products to develop a bundle.

Keywords

Product bundle; Smart products; Goal systems theory; Service; Glue product; Samsung Electronics

“Although bundling tactics are frequently called upon in business, marketing research on product bundles is surprisingly sparse (Russell et al., 1999). This paper represents an attempt to identify bundling smart products by borrowing the key concepts from the Goal Systems Theory (Kruglanski et al., 2018). We posit that constructing a products bundle following a hierarchical goal structure overcomes the limitation of combining categorically dissimilar products. Moreover, it addresses an important role of service in smart product bundling.” (pg. 2898)

*Event

In the age of customer experience, marketing needs to be persistent and participatory

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I was invited by Contents Marketing Summit 2022 to help two professionals share their insights about marketing trends and activities in the age of customer experience. The two professionals are Hyewon Oh, Director of Brand Communication at HE Division, LG Electronics and Ginny Lee, Head of Sports Marketing and Key City Brand Activation at Adidas. They both have 20+ year work experience in the marketing field.

Customer eXperience (CX) matters significantly in Korea because product-based differentiation is challenging more than ever and people strive to experience something new. The invited two professionals introduced several interesting projects and provided participants with fresh insights.

First, LG Electronics is now running a pop-up store called “Geumseong (Goldstar) Recreational Room.” People could play video games with the high-end OLED TVs, having gaming experience. It is also collaborating with world-class artists such as Damien Hirst and Anish Kapoor at the Freeze Art Fair in London and LA, Saatchi Gallery, and Venice Biennale at the same time. While introducing these activities, Director Oh highlighted that only persistent activities work out.

Second, Adidas Korea is running various activities to directly participating in numerous customers, from city tours with Son Heung-min to CSR running events all over the city. Marketer Oh emphasized that in order to engage customers, activities should be designed to give chances for customers to participate in special experience.

They both concluded that commercial impact of marketing activities in the CX era is difficult to be measured in a short run. CX marketers need to be persistent and participatory.